Val Kilmer recently took time off from his quest to become the world’s pre-eminent Mark Twain impersonator to film this video for TotalFilm, promoting the 25th anniversary Blu-Ray release of Willow, the best movie George Lucas ever produced. That’s right, Willow is 25 years old, meaning that if you’re referencing Willow with a 20-something, they likely have no idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, a lot of people have sent this to me already, saying “Check it out, Val Kilmer is WASTED!” which would obviously be right in FilmDrunk’s wheelhouse. I could tell you what I think, but why not just watch it and we can go on this journey together:

Not to defend Val Kilmer being crazy, because Val Kilmer is definitely crazy, but my take on this is that he’s doing schtick. It seems like they’re going for a Life’s Too Short, meta-fictional improvisation kind of a thing, where Warwick Davis plays his “slightly pompous dwarf” character and Kilmer does addled actor. He certainly pulls it off. At the two-minute mark, Kilmer says something that sounds like “from mort to morfy,” which I gather was apparently supposed to be “From Morf to Morphing.” Knowing that it’s a real thing makes it only slightly less fun to rewind over and over. Also, were people just expected to know he was referencing the title of obscure DVD special features?

TotalFilm isn’t Funny or Die, so you can understand people not realizing this was supposed to be a joke. These Brits and their subtle comedy. MAKE WITH THE GROIN SHOTS, NIGEL, I DIDN’T COME HERE FOR NUANCE! Americans demand famous actors in fat and/or magician suits!

I’d love to see Val Kilmer get the semi-autobiographical HBO show treatment that Warwick Davis gets in Life’s Too Short. I’d be in Val-halla! …Yeah yeah, I was already leaving.

Yeah, the Liam Neeson section was the best part of that show and one of the greatest things ever on television. I enjoyed the show, but agree it could have been better. With that said, I would take an episode of that over about 98% of the rest of television.

Val Kilmer is a sleeping giant. When he arises from his 20 year slumber, weighing 150 pounds and already in full character for “Rasputin” (dir. Christopher Nolan), Daniel Day-Lewis’ head is gonna explode like Toht’s in Indiana Jones.

A lot of 20-somethings would get the references. I’m 26 and I remember seeing Willow at a kid. Back in the day most people didn’t have cable and tons of new TV choices all the time. We had reruns of old TV shows and movies and the video store. I’ve seen a ton of stuff from around the time I was born but I don’t think many under 20 could say that. Too many options for them.

I’m almost certain that reading tweets from a while back between Kilmer and Davis that they were talking about filming a life’s too short segment together. If you go to feb 23rd he says “On the set of #Life’sTooShort. Warwick is right underneath me. That’s why I look worried.” Soooo yeah. There’s that too.